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From the image Knowledge is Power, by FoxInShadow

***

The chalk was dry, and dusty, and using it kicked flakes up into the air that tickled Twilight’s nose, but she scraped it along the ground under the guide of the ruler and connected one side of the octagon to the other. Finished, she set the chalk and the ruler off to the side and stepped into the center of the shape, careful not to disturb any of the lines she’d spent the last two hours mapping and tracing. She had double- and triple-checked every other piece, and now she was ready.

The basement was dark, the only light coming from a half-dozen candles. She’d pushed all of her scientific machines and extraneous equipment to the edges of the room to clear out a space large enough to work in. Spike was gone, off for the time being at Rarity’s, with specific instructions to stay gone until she called him back. Twilight had never done a spell this large before, and there was no telling what might happen if it went wrong.

Her horn lit up, a purple glow enshrouding it and a yellow and brown book. She lifted the book to face level and opened it to the middle. In the months previous, Twilight had prepared several of the spells from this book, spells to turn water into sarsaparilla, to change apples into pears (Applejack hadn’t been too happy about that), as she slowly worked her way up to this. Transformation magic was difficult enough as it was, but causing a permanent change, one that wouldn’t revert at midnight, was impossible without the additions the book described.

“Remember to whisper,” she reminded herself, and then she began to read. The book was written in turformen, the cursive script of the High Equestrian language, but Twilight was well-versed in the language and had already prepared a translation. “Listen to me,” she said quietly. “I have looked into you. I understand you. I ask this of you.” Light poured into her horn from within her, causing it to glow and release a burst of energy that snuffed out the candles. The room went dark.

Her horn glowed again, and the words in the book echoed in response, the shapes and lines lighting up with their own purple streak. Beneath her hooves, the lines she had etched in chalk flared purple, starting in the center and racing outward until they reached the edges of the octagon. The symbols surrounding the shape took up the color as well. Though she could not see them, all over the tree, triangles, circles, and hash marks flared with purple light. Twilight nodded, confident that her preparations had been adequate, and continued.

“You are small,” she said. “You have lived much, and yet you are small. Listen to me, and grow.” The patterns in the book lifted up, separating from the page to float in the air. With a thought, Twilight pushed them until they were orbiting around her in two concentric circles. The spell was ready, everything in place, the entire tree thrumming with contained energy, and Twilight said one more word: “Grow.”

Like a dam bursting, power rushed out of Twilight and into the ground and air around her. It soaked into the walls, speeding up into the trunk of the tree, out through the branches and ending in the leaves. Through her magic, Twilight was connected to every part of the tree in which she resided. With a nod of her head, Twilight activated the spell, forcing her magic into the tree. But then the tree pushed back.

Blue light entered the symbols she had drawn, a cyan wave sweeping over her own magenta. It rushed down into the basement, where it slowly converted the purple into blue. With a gasp, Twilight pushed to counteract it. The book fell to the floor, forgotten, as Twilight tried to stem the oncoming flood, but she failed. The blue light struck her, knocking her from her feet, and darkness overtook her.

Opening her eyes, Twilight could see the floor of the basement, bathed in blue light. She rolled onto her stomach and pushed herself up with her hooves. There was a foreign presence, an “other” magic that was clashing strongly with her own. “I don’t get it,” she said out loud. “If the spell failed, why is there still magic present? What’s going on?” She reached out to try to touch the alien force, but her hoof went through the chalk outline and sunk into the floor.

”What?” She held up a hoof in front of her eyes. She could see the scattered electronics right through it. And there, on the floor, half in and half out of the octagon, was her own body. A nervous twinge went through her body, but she held firm against it. “What’s going on?” All of a sudden, something pushed her from below, and she flew up into the air.

She shut her eyes tight as the ceiling loomed close, but when she didn’t feel her body strike the solid roof, she opened her eyes. Ponyville was gone. There were no buildings, no fountains, nothing that would signify that anyone had ever lived on this expanse of land. Even her own treehouse had disappeared. Only grass, long and green, remained.

Twilight stared over the scene, floating high in the air. Nothing, the emptiness of a boundless sunny day over a field of green. And then, a sprout. Something had budded out of the ground. A thin yellow stalk with wide leaves peered back at her. There was a brief sensation, as though wind were ruffling her coat, and time began to flow.

The stalk grew and grew, bursting at the top with a riot of leaves and color that died each fall and bloomed again in the spring, and widening at the trunk each year until it was huge. Then, around it, other things began to appear, at first a single house with a small plot of farmland, then another, and another, until a dozen houses had joined the first, dotting the countryside with the tree at the center of it all. As the tree grew, so did the town. Twilight watched as a train track appeared, with a station and a market, and houses that grew out from the center until she saw Ponyville as she had first seen it from the back of a pegasus-driven chariot. And there was her tree, just as proud and tall as it ever was.

Purple light appeared on the tree, shining out from the windows, replaced by blue. Ponies watched in shock at the magical battle that was taking place inside the library, and then everything stopped. Apparently, Twilight had caught up to the present.

”I think I understand,” Twilight said. The tree hummed in response, its blue light rising and fading and rising again. “You’re part of this, part of Ponyville. You take things at your own pace.” Though the tree did not answer her, Twilight felt that it agreed. “I tried to force you to grow. And I’m sorry. That was wrong.

”But I need a bigger home, and I’d like that home to be where it’s always been, in the center of your trunk. So now, can I ask you, will you grow bigger? Please?”

The tree was silent, and Twilight thought that, however illogical the idea might be, that the tree was pondering her request. She waited quietly, staring down at it, until the tree pulsed, its light expanding and growing. Twilight shut her eyes against it. When she opened them, she was back on the floor of the basement, and the lines were glowing purple once more. Closing her eyes, she levitated the book and pushed the magical script from the pages. “Let’s try this again.”

Once more, Twilight connected with the tree, but when the rush of blue came, Twilight welcomed it, pulling it into herself. Blue swirled with purple, and Twilight felt a rush of power such as she had never experienced before. She was one with the tree, every part of it was a part of her, and together, they would grow. Twilight flexed a muscle, and roots ripped into the ground, growing and expanding into the soil to provide the nutrients for the larger tree. With a thought, the trunk spilled out like someone inflating a balloon, layer after layer of bark growing, dying, and splitting as the wood bulked out underneath it. New leaves popped into view as branches lengthened, stretching themselves out over the neighboring houses. The inside of the tree shifted as Twilight took the opportunity to carve rooms out of the new wood. Somewhere above her, a bookcase fell over. She would fix that later.

When she felt the tree grow to a sufficient size, she stopped. “Thank you,” she said. The tree’s magic pulsed again, and the blue pulled away from her, back into the wood. Twilight let her own magic recede. She took a step forward, ready to go upstairs and survey the changes she’d made, when her left foreleg gave out and she stumbled. She felt drained, more exhausted than she’d ever been after a spell.

The door from the first floor of the library opened, and Twilight could see Spike looking down the stairs at her. “Twilight!” he said. “I could see the light from Carousel Boutique! Are you all right?”

Twilight stood up, her knees trembling, but holding for now. “I’m fine,” she said. “Can you get some paper, though? I want to write the Princess a letter.”